any one else have problems with there computer restarting it self off after they installed the myspace IM??? I personly don't use it but 2 times now my wife has downloaded it on our computer and both times it has eventually made the computer starts restarting it self and going in a cycle of doing that non stop ...WTF!!!!

gorillaboy wrote:any one else have problems with there computer restarting it self off after they installed the myspace IM??? I personly don't use it but 2 times now my wife has downloaded it on our computer and both times it has eventually made the computer starts restarting it self and going in a cycle of doing that non stop ...WTF!!!!

OK so now i dont know what the hell is going on with my comp...it started restarting again last night and the only way i can do any thing on here is through a diagnostic start up and i dont know what i'm looking for....anyone got any ideas????

ok I went through every thing
I could think of but now it's not doing it ( for now ) so I have no idea whats happening to my comp....I guess it's all good as long as I can fix it every time ( all though it's a major pain to do so )

1) Sometimes this can be caused by an overheating situation. Itunes, RealPlayer, Windows Media player, etc. require a lot of processing power to decompress and decode music files, which can cause the processor or hard drive to get hot.

If your CPU is running at over 60 degrees (C) you might be at risk of burning it out. Some systems shut down automatically when the temperature reaches an unsafe level. Every few weeks I open my system unit and clean the fins on the heat sink that sits under the CPU. When they collect dust it restricts the airflow and prevents proper cooling. You can use a can of compressed air (look at your local office supply store) or an old toothbrush.

2) If you determine that overheating is not the problem, the most likely suspect is bad memory. Trying to access a bad spot in your system memory (RAM) can cause the computer to freak out and restart. The best way to find the culprit is to pop open the system unit, remove (or replace) one RAM stick and see if the problem is solved. Run your system for a while and if the problem goes away, you win! If not... lather, rinse and repeat for each RAM stick until you find the one that's misbehaving.

3) There's a setting buried in Windows XP that tells your computer to restart when a system error occurs. If you turn off that option, you may solve your automatic reboot problem.

# Click Start, then open Control Panel
# Click Performance and Maintenance
# Click System
# Click on the Advanced Tab
# Click Settings in the Startup and Recovery section
# Uncheck Automatically Restart in the System failure section

Note that this may prevent the system from restarting, but it can also mask the true problem. As an alternative to this measure, consider what has recently changed on your system. If you have installed new hardware or software, remove it and see if the annoying restart persists. Sometimes downloading the latest driver software from the manufacturer's website will fix hardware incompatibility problems that cause restarts.

4) Of course an obvious answer would be spyware/virus/trojan that is causing it to do so. I once heard that the Sasser worm caused a computer to go into a loop of restarting. Look into Avast, Zonealarm and Ad-Aware to help with those issues.

***Answers 1 2 and 3 were gathered from other sources***

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well I cleaned out my comp tower ( there was a lot of dust in there holy crap!!! ) and so far it seems to be working it hasn't restarted since I did it so maybe that was the problem to begin with but what do I know

It does sound like overheating. gotta clean out them fans and stuff about every 6 months or so. even if its not that bad, the cooler it runs the longer its gonna last.

I had a machine a few years ago that was rebooting occasionally. Then we had a really hot week and it was rebooting left and right. on further investigation I found that the fan on the video card had stoped working. I put a different fan on and it would still boot up but once I did anything to heat up the video card a bit it would just reboot. New video card fixed it right up. If you have another pc you can pull the video out of for a few hours to test it might be worth a shot.